Topic: 98se question.  (Read 14649 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Towelie

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #40 on: January 18, 2004, 02:07:45 am »
  I've had zero issues with Seagate. Maxtor has been trouble free. I remember the two most unreliable, Fujitsu, and Conner. But that was a while back.

  IMHO, I trust companies that have been at it a while. I know WD and Seagate have had a long history, not to say others haven't. And there is also the treatment of the drives, enviroment, cooling, motion ect.  

WillWeasel

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #41 on: January 18, 2004, 10:27:38 am »
Quote:

  WOW, WD is one of the few I have alot of faith in. Never lost a file on one yet.

 It would seem it found and locked out those bad sectors on the first pass. Hope you get it stable again, but stay prepared to move it to a new drive. Sounds like you already got it under control.  






-goes cross eyed-

I won't even take a W.D. hard drive for free anymore. It's just not worth the time it takes to restore my system.

 

Bonk

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #42 on: January 18, 2004, 10:40:06 am »
Strange I've heard so many say this of WD now, yet I have sworn by them for years, never had a problem. I think they have been aquired by Maxtor recently? Perhaps the WD drives are not getting the attention they used to? I did get a bad sector on a Maxtor once, but have found Seagate and Quantum pretty reliable in the past.  

Iceman

  • Guest
98se question.
« Reply #43 on: January 14, 2004, 01:38:11 pm »
So, I came home from school today round 2:30 and started up the computer.  I go to open my mp3's, and all my folder settings have been returned to default.  Any ideas?  I know for a fact that I did not change them and neither did my mother, the only other person in the house at the current time.  

DreadlordGW

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #44 on: January 14, 2004, 01:47:51 pm »
Improper shutdown can sometimes cause the defaulting.

Beyond that i'm not sure

Iceman

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #45 on: January 14, 2004, 02:11:09 pm »
No, that wasn't it.  I shut it down correctly last night so that's ruled out.  Is it a virus possibly?

Another question that may/may not be related.  My dad uses outlook express for e-mail through his comcast account.  Lately we've been getting 10-15 undeliverable messages daily.  (that weren't sent from him).  Is this possibly a virus?  I know he's not sending these cause he's simply not here.  

Sirgod

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #46 on: January 14, 2004, 02:25:42 pm »
It almost probably is a Virus given the email part. I would def. update the virus deff. and or grab a virus scanner, I think AVG is free still. Check that out first, run a complete scan and see what comes up.

Stephen

Dallas

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #47 on: January 14, 2004, 02:38:03 pm »
When I used 98 sometimes the associations would get wonky for no reason.
What you said about Outlook Express sounds funky. I'd run a scan just to be
safe and then I would turn off the preview window in Outlook Express.

 

Malystryx_XC

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #48 on: January 14, 2004, 02:41:37 pm »
Quote:

My dad uses outlook express for e-mail through his comcast account.  Lately we've been getting 10-15 undeliverable messages daily.  (that weren't sent from him).  Is this possibly a virus?  I know he's not sending these cause he's simply not here.    




That definately sounds like it could be a virus.  Also, do you use a firewall on that machine?  If you do not, do you at least religously keep the system updated from the Microsoft Windows Update site?  There are a lot of viruses now that can infect your system quickly (within 5 minutes or less) of simply being on the Internet.  They make use of vulnerabilities in Windows code to imbed themselves into your computer.

The first thing to do is scan your system for viruses using a modern and current anti-virus program.  There are even free ones on the web that will scan your machine using the Internet.  Trend Micro has one at:  Free Anti-Virus Scan

Once you rule out any viruses (or remove them if detected) you should also run a sypware/malware detection program.  These little buggers can also cause security issues for you.  A great free program is called Spybot Search and Destroy which you can find here:  Spybot Search and Destroy   Be sure to run the update for it once installed to download the latest pattern file before using.

Lastly, get yourself a firewall if you do not already have one!  These are an absolute must in today's age of computing.  There are a number of free personal firewall packages that you can get.  One which a number of people use here is called Zone Alarm and can be retrieved from:  ZoneAlarm

Good luck and don't forget to keep your system up to date from  Windows Update Site !  

Iceman

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #49 on: January 14, 2004, 04:38:59 pm »
I have Norton 2003 (with the subscription, so Im up to date). I'm going to install ZoneAlarm and that Search and Destroy program you suggest, although I've run AdAware and Norton before, I hope maybe it'll find something this time.  Thanks for all the advice guys!

Javora

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #50 on: January 15, 2004, 11:35:23 am »
Since no one has mentioned this I would suggest running HiJack This.  This program seems to find things that others miss.  If you need help with this program you can go to the Tech Support Forums for assistance.  You may also want to go ahead and run that other virus scan, this might be a new virus that Norton has not had time to release an update for.  IMHO Norton has a poor track record in this regard.  Hope this helps.
 

KOTH-Steel Claw

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #51 on: January 15, 2004, 12:22:31 pm »
It could be that someone else with your dad's email address in their contact list got hit as well and the virus is using his addy to send out crud.

When was the last time you did a re-install of the OS? 98 had a tendency to need a little re-installing from time to time. You can also run Spider, AdAware, and Spybot (in that order) as well (besides keeping your AV up to date).

Iceman

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #52 on: January 15, 2004, 02:22:39 pm »
Spybot found 35 or so things, which were in turn removed.  Most benign, but i think it's all better now! Thank you all so much!

Towelie

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #53 on: January 15, 2004, 07:25:14 pm »
  Srorched Earth time for 98se! Deltree /windows /e/a (I think that was it) and deltree \progra~1 /e/a and then re-install! Anytime I had an improper shutdown or something just didn't look right...  

  Just messing around. I did re-install W98se a few times though when ever my father or something killed it.  

Barabbas

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #54 on: January 16, 2004, 09:34:30 am »
Quote:

No, that wasn't it.  I shut it down correctly last night so that's ruled out.  Is it a virus possibly?

Another question that may/may not be related.  My dad uses outlook express for e-mail through his comcast account.  Lately we've been getting 10-15 undeliverable messages daily.  (that weren't sent from him).  Is this possibly a virus?  I know he's not sending these cause he's simply not here.    





This could also be a spammer horking your dad's Email address for his outgoing spam.  If so, the only solution will be to change addresses.

Iceman

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #55 on: January 16, 2004, 10:25:44 am »
That's not really a possibility, since it's Comcast and  I don't think they support multiple addresses, but I'm not sure.  I'll have to look into it.  Thanks.

Iceman

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #56 on: January 16, 2004, 02:34:14 pm »
I seem to be getting closer and closer to a catastrophic failure here.  I found 6 trojan horse infections that Norton ID'd but could not repair.  Luckily it was nothing vital, so I quarantined and deleted them.  So I went to play Homeworl2, and found some issue with displaying the ships geometry.  So I download the patch, restart, and it says my ATI Drivers are out of date.  Duh, I say thats why the geometry was all buggered.  So I update.  It says to reboot, I do, and I get a bad sector error.  Can someone explain what a bad sector is?

Javora

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #57 on: January 16, 2004, 02:52:51 pm »
Quote:


It says to reboot, I do, and I get a bad sector error.  Can someone explain what a bad sector is?





A bad sector is usually a bad section (sector) on a hard drive.  Try doing a disk scan, for that matter try defragging the hard drive.  But do the (through) disk scan first.  It's starting to sound like your system has more than one issue here.
 

Sirgod

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #58 on: January 16, 2004, 03:04:26 pm »
Quote:

Quote:


It says to reboot, I do, and I get a bad sector error.  Can someone explain what a bad sector is?





A bad sector is usually a bad section (sector) on a hard drive.  Try doing a disk scan, for that matter try defragging the hard drive.  But do the (through) disk scan first.  It's starting to sound like your system has more than one issue here.
   




I agree with javora here Iceman, It's pretty simple to do, Just boot into safe mode first, just to be on the safe side.

Stephen

Sethan

  • Guest
Re: 98se question.
« Reply #59 on: January 16, 2004, 03:05:09 pm »
Quote:

So I update.  It says to reboot, I do, and I get a bad sector error.  Can someone explain what a bad sector is?  




Javora is correct - the hard drive is split up into sectors, and the computer has determined that one of those sectors is bad.

There is good news and bad news regarding this.  First the good news:

- There is a utility built into Win98 which can identify the bad sectors on the drive, mark them as bad so they are not used again, and move whatever data can be recovered to sections of the drive which are not bad.  This utility is called SCANDISK.  It can be started in several ways, either from the GUI or from a command prompt.  I find the DOS version from the command prompt to be more reliable.  Restart the machine in DOS mode, and type

SCANDISK C:

at a command prompt.  This will start scandisk.  When it asks if you want it to do a surface scan, tell it Yes.  It will mark any bad sectors on the drive with a 'B'.

Now for the bad news.  Bad sectors on a drive can be caused by several different things - and most of them are degenerative.  What that means is that the bad sectors will tend to spread, ruining more of your data (or making the OS not start), or even making the drive inaccessible.

If a scandisk shows bad sectors on the drive, it is time to back up your data and replace the hard drive.